Posts by Terry

2

WHILE I WAS PRAYING . . .

by Terry in

one night a long long time ago .

.. i distinctly remember lying in my bed staring at the shadows on the ceiling and saying my prayers to jehovah while becoming annoyed with myself at how rote and over familiar my thoughts had become.. it just didn't feel authentic.

i steeled myself to the task and began again, apologizing for the insincerity!.

Terry

NVR2L8, thank you. I think it is called an "epiphany".

"an enlightening realization allows a problem or situation to be understood from a new and deeper perspective."

32

JW Child Abuse Documentary

by cappytan in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulswb2avxvc.

let's set aside our differences for the moment and appreciate this excellent documentary cedars put together that should prove to be an invaluable tool in helping to expose the child abuse issues in the organization.. i was humbled to be able to help with this project on such an important subject, though my part in it was insignificant..

Terry

problemaddict 212 hours ago

I kind of wish Cedars would have cleaned up abit from the nice homeless Croatian thing he has going on......but then again.......I'm sitting here on my butt.

_______________________

Getting a still in JW to watch an Apostate with a beard, tousled hair, a T-shirt and a casual manner is practically an impossibility, certainly.

The question is: Would a still in JW watch an Apostate with a fresh haircut, clean shave, and a suit and tie?

I attended a Witness funeral for somebody I dearly loved and all my old Bros and Sis's eyeballed me pretty cynically. I was wearing a suit, my hair was neatly combed and I was calm and respectful. The chatter about me centered on one thing and one thing only. Guess what it was? I had a beard at the time.
Should I have shaved before attending the funeral just so those idiots would have to find some other nonsense to natter about?

This Video will be seen by people who are desperate enough and curious enough to seek it out and study it for facts and content. Anybody who dismisses it because Cedar's scraggly visage is offensive wouldn't really pay any attention anyway, IMHO.

98

OKAY, GAME OVER! The number one reason the New Testament amounts to bunk

by Terry in

for me, the dead giveaway is this.

jesus wrote nothing.. stop and think about that.. if jesus were the authentic messiah, his ministry would not simply be local.. his instructions, his mission, the details of his teachings would be too precious to risk leaving it in the hands of "men unlettered (illiterate) and ordinary (blue-collar yokels).".

jesus, were he the one and only hope of mankind, would be absolutely certain to write down with great simplicity and specificity the exact owner's manual necessary to rescue mankind.. never happened!.

Terry

The point of this Discussion is so simple.

JESUS is the whole of Christianity and yet we must depend on other people's words about every single detail. Christians see treasure in the Bible and yet each has a separate and distinct opinion about what it says and means.

It is because JESUS is a cipher in history.

Nothing substantial has been yielded by archeology, paleontology or Roman archives.

The Bible has been pulled rotting out of old jars and pieced together like pulling bits of an old baloney sandwich from the city dump and serving it up as lunch for your children.

If that seems great to you--be my guest. Just don't expect me to chow down or compliment the Chef.

21

THE SHADOW OF 75 still hangs over us all . . .

by Terry in

few of your are old enough to have been there, i suspect.

i had been in prison two years as a jw conscientious objector when the exciting news about 1975 spread like wildfire.. .

i was paroled from prison in 1969 and immediately began pioneering.

Terry

There have been "secret" policies ever since Rutherford and his Board of Directors (all but one) were imprisoned for misprision of a felony advising young serving men in the Army to not follow orders EVEN IF IT MEANT BEING SHOT as a traitor.

The stealth modes set in at that juncture and paranoia dovetailed into a C.Y.A. premise for all controversial policies.

2

WHILE I WAS PRAYING . . .

by Terry in

one night a long long time ago .

.. i distinctly remember lying in my bed staring at the shadows on the ceiling and saying my prayers to jehovah while becoming annoyed with myself at how rote and over familiar my thoughts had become.. it just didn't feel authentic.

i steeled myself to the task and began again, apologizing for the insincerity!.

Terry

One night a long long time ago . . .

I distinctly remember lying in my bed staring at the shadows on the ceiling and saying my prayers to Jehovah while becoming annoyed with myself at how rote and over familiar my thoughts had become.

It just didn't feel authentic.

I steeled myself to the task and began again, apologizing for the insincerity!

My mind quickly wandered. I switched into an analytic mode. "What's wrong with me this evening?"

Then it came to me with startling clarity. I WAS TALKING TO MYSELF!

I was like a kid with a Teddy bear having a conversation and projecting upon my cuddly stuffed toy the 'personality' I wanted it to have! I was like the little girls having a tea party with their favorite dolls making chatter for each distinct personality. All of it imaginary but feeling so real!

It was ONLY ME as mental ventriloquist projecting a feathery nothing into the Universe as fragile as a soap bubble floating airily above me.

Wow. This realization came with some impact attached--it knocked the wind out of me.

I remembered an incident when I was a boy. I pulled the threads together in my mental tapestry and stepped back to see the pattern. . .

I loved playing "cowboy" since I grew up in Ft.Worth, Texas and watched way too many cowboy TV shows with Hopalong Cassidy, Hoot Gibson, Johnny Mack Brown, The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, and a host of others.
I dressed up in my Hopalong Cassidy outfit and strapped on my two six-gun cap pistols and mounted my faithful stick horse and rode around my front yard making the sounds of the horse and my own gunfire (as well as ricocheting bullets.)

Why do I mention this? Because, as I was telling you, I had just realized lying in my bed one night I had been fooling myself about prayer and this boyhood incident flashed into my head.

There I was in my front yard on my stick horse popping my cap pistol when I looked across the street and saw Mr. Washington on his front porch staring at me. My neighbor had this strange expression on his face which suddenly made me self-aware.

Then it had hit me: I was 13 and TOO DAMNED OLD to be acting like a child any longer!

The same was true of praying. I was fooling myself, lost in my own imagination.

___________________________

WHEN WE ARE PRAYING, we are simply talking to ourselves!

21

THE SHADOW OF 75 still hangs over us all . . .

by Terry in

few of your are old enough to have been there, i suspect.

i had been in prison two years as a jw conscientious objector when the exciting news about 1975 spread like wildfire.. .

i was paroled from prison in 1969 and immediately began pioneering.

Terry

Few of your are old enough to have been there, I suspect.

I had been in prison two years as a JW conscientious objector when the exciting news about 1975 spread like wildfire.

I was paroled from prison in 1969 and immediately began Pioneering. The pressures began mounting throughout the organization. You could only conduct a Bible Study for six months. If your study didn't get baptized--you had to cut them loose; time was too precious to waste!

I married and had little kids to worry about feeding on minimum wage from a part time job. It almost gave me a nervous breakdown. So, I moved the family from Fort Worth to California.

I met non-JW's who were much nicer and more caring about me and my family than the Witnesses. Everybody was relaxed and enjoying life.

I suddenly woke up!

________________

My wife, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck. This was 1974 and she could practically hear the countdown clock ticking inside her head.

When 1975 came, the kettle was boiling.

Every JW on planet Earth had bug eyes.

And then. . . it got very quiet.

____________________________

Then. . .It was over.

The word you are looking for is a short and simple one: STUNNED.

Dubs were simply stunned.

Why?

Their religion had suddenly been tested for truth and proved FALSE.

Stop and think about that for a second. It was like your Mom and Dad suddenly telling you that you weren't their kid--you were adopted.

It was like finding out your best friend was a serial killer.

People were heartbroken, shaken, upset and finally depressed.

But, what happened next was truly terrible!

You know what it was?

Of course, you don't--not unless you were there.

Instead of an angry mob of disillusioned JW's demanding a hearing and statement of accountability they just shut up and shrugged and went about their business like good little robots!

Did you ever see a documentary about the Holocaust when Nazi soldiers marched a group of condemned Jews to an excavated trench and had them kneel down next to that empty pit? A soldier with a pistol went one by one and shot them in the back of their head while the others down the line waited and waited. . .

Did you ever wonder why they didn't try to run or all rush the soldier and stop him?

Well,l folks, it was that sort of resignation.

JW's were defeated, dispirited, and depressed and they just gave up.

Those people have swallowed the whole thing and shit it out and flushed it away like it never happened.

There. That's your answer.

Cognitive dissonance.

My wife became an alcoholic.

She died coming home from a bar, drunk--chased by cops because she had been stopped and her driver's license had already been taken away.

She tried to escape and drove off at top speed and crashed into the back of a parked car.

This was the legacy of the religion she so loved and trusted and believed for so long.

The shadow of 75 still hangs over us all . . .

66

THE LINGERING SHADOW OF '75

by Terry in

none of you are old enough to have been there, i suspect.

i had been in prison two years as a jw conscientious objector when the exciting news about 1975 spread like wildfire.i was paroled from prison in 1969 and immediately began pioneering.

the pressures began mounting throughout the organization.

Terry

I said to my (former) best friend, a still-in JW, "What is a more obvious disproof of False prophecy than 1975?"

This fellow is a masterful deflector. He replied, "I personally know at least 30 or 40 who were upset enough to leave the Organization over that 1975 issue. You know what I think? I think they were only in this religion to save their own asses and not because they loved Jehovah!"

This absolutely floored me. Did you see what he just did? It was amazingly sly. He switched the connotation and reframed the problem in less than a second!

I replied to him the following.

"So do I hear you saying to me that a Christian is required to spread false prophecy to others in Jehovah's name, under his Authority for no better reason than we shouldn't care about our own asses because we mistakenly demonstrate "love" by becoming complicit in blasphemy?"

He was silent and the wheels clickety clicked. I watched fascinated as the processing whirred along. Seconds later he answered slowly.

"No-o-o, I'm not saying that. I'm saying I am not perfect and neither is anybody who is a human being connected with any religious group. I'm saying we have to trust the Faithful and Discreet slave are doing the best they can with what they've got. Jehovah corrected them. That was Him showing His love. We show our love by waiting and not running ahead."

Wow!

That steamed me. For one thing, it is so self-satisfied, complaisant and smug. Further, it completely IGNORES the central issue involved!

I tried yet again.

"Why is there a test for False Prophets in the Bible in the first place if isn't going to mean anything when we discover one? Does the Bible urge us to act patiently when advised by a False Prophet and to wait on Jehovah--or does it say the False Prophet is to be PUT TO DEATH? Sounds rather cut and dried to me. What am I missing?"

I knew by now I wasn't dealing with an honest thinker and that this was his ego being protected. I felt I had put him on the mat and he wasn't willing to cry "Uncle."

He responded. "What am I supposed to do--become a Baptist again; start believing in Hell and the Trinity? Where do I go that has true Bible teachings better than what the Society gives us?"

Did you hear that? He's so sneaky! He loves switching the premise out from under the discussion. It is so shady!

I was growing angry and not quite able to hold back as calmly as I should. After all, I had known this JW my whole life. He's the bastard who recruited me into the cult!
I growled at him:

"You're so full of it. That's like buying apples with only one worm because the other apples have two or three worms! Who wants to eat a goddamned worm in the first place? What makes you think you have to join any religion and go along to get along? Why can't you have a personal relationship with God as an individual . . .?"

And just as I was saying these words I knew in advance what his rebuttal would be. I could have made it for him. So I suddenly veered off and intercepted it preemptively.

". . . and don't tell me Jehovah only works through the Organization. Paul was a Lone Ranger and Jesus himself constantly argued with Jehovah's "Organization" in his day where the governing body were the freakin' Pharisees!"

I watched his face and knew I wasn't calm enough to make any sober impression on him. He waited till I was quiet and calmly followed up.

"I am waiting on Jehovah and making the best choice I know how to make. I'm sure Jehovah will deal with those Brothers who got 1975 wrong and stumbled thousands of little ones. It has nothing to do with me. I can only be loyal to his appointed leaders and trust he'll show me the way."

Oh fer Crissakes! How bleedin' fake humble can you get?

So, you see, there was no progress made at all and I got a spike in my blood pressure for nothing.

"Here is what happened and make no mistake about it. Millions of us took time out of our lives to spread a big, fat stinking piece-of-shit False Prophecy because we trusted some crazy old coot named Freddy Franz who had one foot in the insane asylum and the other foot on a banana peel. We got the world focusing on a fake date and then nothing happened which only made the world laugh out loud at our FAKE GOD Jehovah because of all our millions of hours spent for nothing. They stole part of my life and I will never get that time back again. I went to prison for absolutely nothing. I will never get my 21st birthday back because I spent it sitting on my ass in prison. I was lied to and I was sent out to lie to others. If you think this is an act of LOVE to go along with it and smile and eat their shit like it was mom's apple pie--go right ahead. I think it is a miserable excuse for Christianity. If you want to know what ELSE you could do--how about this? Spend some time working for a charity, visit a hospital, visit the sick and elderly, take meals door to door instead of rag magazines with puke in them. Help crippled children, become a volunteer fireman, build houses for the poor. . . how's that for a start?"

He simply shrugged and said the rather feckless phrase. "We'll just have to agree to disagree." And that was that.

66

THE LINGERING SHADOW OF '75

by Terry in

none of you are old enough to have been there, i suspect.

i had been in prison two years as a jw conscientious objector when the exciting news about 1975 spread like wildfire.i was paroled from prison in 1969 and immediately began pioneering.

the pressures began mounting throughout the organization.

Terry

I was taught by my grandfather to watch very carefully when you see somebody who is apologizing to you so you'll know their true character. When you harm somebody you create a debt and an imbalance between you and the victim. How you address that debt requires proper acknowledgment and a request to be allowed to restore the balance.

According to my Paw-paw, an apology is different from an excuse. An excuse is a list of reasons why the person who got caught thinks you shouldn't blame or punish them.

A real apology comes from a person who clearly states their awareness of the harm done, the people hurt, the consequences to others, and the debt the person owns for having started the whole thing.

An apology always contains the word "Sorry" and it stands next to the words "I am."

Anything other than that is waffling deflection.

Finally, a true apology finds the one who did the harm asking or even entreating (begging) for forgiveness directly from any person(s) harm. It is a question and not a statement of hope.

"I hope you'll forgive me" is not good.

"I'm asking (begging) you to forgive me" is good.

"What can I do that help you to forgive me?" is best.

98

OKAY, GAME OVER! The number one reason the New Testament amounts to bunk

by Terry in

for me, the dead giveaway is this.

jesus wrote nothing.. stop and think about that.. if jesus were the authentic messiah, his ministry would not simply be local.. his instructions, his mission, the details of his teachings would be too precious to risk leaving it in the hands of "men unlettered (illiterate) and ordinary (blue-collar yokels).".

jesus, were he the one and only hope of mankind, would be absolutely certain to write down with great simplicity and specificity the exact owner's manual necessary to rescue mankind.. never happened!.

Terry

The truly remarkable thing about human intellect is the practically infinite interpretations which can be extracted from a text.

I always stop people who are talking about Christianity as though it were a solidarity movement. I say, "Hold on now--there are almost 40,000 denominations under differing banners, policies, theologies, doctrines, interpretations and degrees of conviction as to how "right" they are compared to all the other denominations "wrong."
So, CHRISTIANITY is one of the most general concepts and not a unity of people or purposes.

66

THE LINGERING SHADOW OF '75

by Terry in

none of you are old enough to have been there, i suspect.

i had been in prison two years as a jw conscientious objector when the exciting news about 1975 spread like wildfire.i was paroled from prison in 1969 and immediately began pioneering.

the pressures began mounting throughout the organization.

Terry

"Out of zeal and enthusiasm for the vindication of Jehovah's name, Word and purposes, and the desire for the new system, some [IN THE WRITING DEPARTMENT UNDER INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE GOVERNING BODY] of his servants have at times been premature in their expectations." Watchtower 1979 Jul 1 p.29 How Jehovah Guides His People

There now--that feel more like a responsible approximation of an admission of negligence. Yet even with that additional bit, this really isn't abject apologizing at its best is it? No. It is deflection. Tsk tsk tsk